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A review by deecue2
A Gardener's Guide to Botany: The biology behind the plants you love, how they grow, and what they need by Scott Zona
3.0
I think this is a terrific book for the right audience. For me something less technical would be better.
Over the past several years my wife and I have removed sections of lawn and replaced them with a variety of plants to aid pollinators and bring visual interest. We've studied the proper locations to plant everything and made a list of their needs (water, fertilizer (Yes? No? What kinds?) and the like) but I don't have a proper sense of why these plants have different needs. I want to understand them. The author more than delivers but I'm just not up to it. Maybe it's the summer heat.
To get to this:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 889
"Fruits have a dual purpose. Their job is to protect and disperse the seeds. Fruits do their job in a variety of ways, some more efficiently than others. Fruits that are succulent and fleshy are a bribe, a reward to the animal that eats the fruits and carries the seeds away (in its stomach) to be deposited—along with a bit of organic fertilizer— somewhere else. Other fruits are all sizzle and no steak: They look edible and are consumed by animals, but they don’t offer any nutrition in return. Still other fruits have wings that glide the seeds to their new homes, and still others are sticky burrs that cling to passing animals or socks with the tenacity of VELCRO hook-and-loop fasteners. (Not surprisingly, it was a species of Arctium in the sunflower family, whose seed-heads clung to his dog’s fur and his own pants, that inspired Swiss hiker and engineer George de Mestral to invent the fastener in 1948.)"
You have to go through many more passages like this:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 828
"A cone (also called a strobilus) is a branch system that bears one or more sporophylls, which are the leaf-derived structures that bear either the female ovule or the male pollen sacs. The male cone (also called microstrobilus) bears the pollen sacs on the underside of the microsporophyll. Usually, each male cone has dozens of microsporophylls. The male cones of many conifers are not especially distinctive in their morphology. In contrast, the female cone (megastrobilus) is characteristic for each species and important to have in hand if you want to identify conifers. The megastrobilus may have one or more megasporophylls or ovuliferous scales, modified leaves that bear one or more ovules, which when fertilized and mature, become the seeds. The leafy origin of the egasporophyll is best seen in the cycad genus Cycas, whose megasporophylls are not organized into cones and look like stubby, miniaturized versions of the plant's own leaves. In ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), the
ovules are borne on short stalks, usually in pairs, without any obvious megasporophyll.
"Interior to the perianth are the stamens, which are the male parts of the flower. Most stamens have a stalk (the filament) that bears sacs (the anther) at its tip. Inside the anther, pollen is formed. Pollen are the cells that bear the sperm. Although each grain of pollen is usually only one cell, that cell contains three nuclei. Each nucleus has its own role to play in sexual reproduction.
"Finally, the center of the flower is occupied by the carpels, the female part(s) of the flower, which are collectively called the gynoecium (plural: gynoecia). The gynoecium is often just a single carpel (called a pistil in older literature) and has at its tip the stigma, which is where the pollen lands. The stigma may be supported by a short or long stalk, called the style, which connects the stigma to the ovary, the chamber that encloses the ovules. Ovules contain the egg cells. A mature ovary is a fruit, and matured ovules are seeds. Some flowers have just the one carpel, but many have a single gynoecium comprised of two or more carpels fused together. In other plants, the gynoecium comprises multiple, separate (unfused) carpels in a single flower.
"A flower that has both stamens and gynoecium is called a perfect or bisexual flower, and the species is hermaphroditic. A unisexual flower, either stamen-bearing or gynoecium-bearing, is imperfect. When imperfect male and female flowers are produced on the same plant, the species is monoecious (“one house”). If they are borne on separate plants, i.e., there are separate male and female plants, the species is dioecious (“two houses”). Examples of monoecious species are pines (Pinus spp.), oaks (Quercus spp.), coconut (Cocos nucifera), and corn (Zea mays). Dioecious species include kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa), date (Phoenix dactylifera), and ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba)."
When a technical term is introduced it's explained briefly but not again. And the terms pile up quickly.
So for the truly scientific minded this is nepeta cataria and for the rest of us it goes too far into the botanical weeds.
Over the past several years my wife and I have removed sections of lawn and replaced them with a variety of plants to aid pollinators and bring visual interest. We've studied the proper locations to plant everything and made a list of their needs (water, fertilizer (Yes? No? What kinds?) and the like) but I don't have a proper sense of why these plants have different needs. I want to understand them. The author more than delivers but I'm just not up to it. Maybe it's the summer heat.
To get to this:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 889
"Fruits have a dual purpose. Their job is to protect and disperse the seeds. Fruits do their job in a variety of ways, some more efficiently than others. Fruits that are succulent and fleshy are a bribe, a reward to the animal that eats the fruits and carries the seeds away (in its stomach) to be deposited—along with a bit of organic fertilizer— somewhere else. Other fruits are all sizzle and no steak: They look edible and are consumed by animals, but they don’t offer any nutrition in return. Still other fruits have wings that glide the seeds to their new homes, and still others are sticky burrs that cling to passing animals or socks with the tenacity of VELCRO hook-and-loop fasteners. (Not surprisingly, it was a species of Arctium in the sunflower family, whose seed-heads clung to his dog’s fur and his own pants, that inspired Swiss hiker and engineer George de Mestral to invent the fastener in 1948.)"
You have to go through many more passages like this:
Highlight (Yellow) | Location 828
"A cone (also called a strobilus) is a branch system that bears one or more sporophylls, which are the leaf-derived structures that bear either the female ovule or the male pollen sacs. The male cone (also called microstrobilus) bears the pollen sacs on the underside of the microsporophyll. Usually, each male cone has dozens of microsporophylls. The male cones of many conifers are not especially distinctive in their morphology. In contrast, the female cone (megastrobilus) is characteristic for each species and important to have in hand if you want to identify conifers. The megastrobilus may have one or more megasporophylls or ovuliferous scales, modified leaves that bear one or more ovules, which when fertilized and mature, become the seeds. The leafy origin of the egasporophyll is best seen in the cycad genus Cycas, whose megasporophylls are not organized into cones and look like stubby, miniaturized versions of the plant's own leaves. In ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba), the
ovules are borne on short stalks, usually in pairs, without any obvious megasporophyll.
"Interior to the perianth are the stamens, which are the male parts of the flower. Most stamens have a stalk (the filament) that bears sacs (the anther) at its tip. Inside the anther, pollen is formed. Pollen are the cells that bear the sperm. Although each grain of pollen is usually only one cell, that cell contains three nuclei. Each nucleus has its own role to play in sexual reproduction.
"Finally, the center of the flower is occupied by the carpels, the female part(s) of the flower, which are collectively called the gynoecium (plural: gynoecia). The gynoecium is often just a single carpel (called a pistil in older literature) and has at its tip the stigma, which is where the pollen lands. The stigma may be supported by a short or long stalk, called the style, which connects the stigma to the ovary, the chamber that encloses the ovules. Ovules contain the egg cells. A mature ovary is a fruit, and matured ovules are seeds. Some flowers have just the one carpel, but many have a single gynoecium comprised of two or more carpels fused together. In other plants, the gynoecium comprises multiple, separate (unfused) carpels in a single flower.
"A flower that has both stamens and gynoecium is called a perfect or bisexual flower, and the species is hermaphroditic. A unisexual flower, either stamen-bearing or gynoecium-bearing, is imperfect. When imperfect male and female flowers are produced on the same plant, the species is monoecious (“one house”). If they are borne on separate plants, i.e., there are separate male and female plants, the species is dioecious (“two houses”). Examples of monoecious species are pines (Pinus spp.), oaks (Quercus spp.), coconut (Cocos nucifera), and corn (Zea mays). Dioecious species include kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa), date (Phoenix dactylifera), and ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba)."
When a technical term is introduced it's explained briefly but not again. And the terms pile up quickly.
So for the truly scientific minded this is nepeta cataria and for the rest of us it goes too far into the botanical weeds.